


one beast to another

by bellafarallones



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Autistic Indrid Cold (The Adventure Zone), Friends With Benefits, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Sort Of, afterwards indrid eats too much sugar, and reveals his and barclay's true forms to stern, barclay and stern have a conversation about it and also their feelings, barclay is about to go into heat and asks indrid to help him through it in a fwb way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:26:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26588104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellafarallones/pseuds/bellafarallones
Summary: “Sit down, make yourself comfortable.” Indrid swept a wave of papers off the squat couch and headed to the tiny kitchenette. Barclay sat. “The answer is yes, by the way,” Indrid continued. He pressed a cup of eggnog into Barclay’s hand and leaned up against the wall opposite the couch. “You don’t have to be nervous about asking.”The eggnog was thick and cold and cinnamony down Barclay’s throat. It was strange to take a drink from someone else; he was so used to being the one offering. “Thank you.”
Relationships: Barclay/Agent Stern (The Adventure Zone), Barclay/Indrid Cold (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 32





	one beast to another

**Author's Note:**

> i read "Love is In the Air" by ThisWasInevitable and thought.. what if barclay went to someone who would understand what he was going through?

Dinner service at the Amnesty Lodge had finished, but Agent Stern loitered at the bar. “What can you give me that won’t actually get me drunk too fast? I’m planning to be here a while.”

Barclay glanced over to the clock - almost eight o’clock - and Stern saw him do it, looked hurt. 

“Sorry,” said Barclay. Any other night he’d play along, stay up past midnight, just him and Stern in the cavernous lobby. “I’d love to, really, but I have a thing.”

“Oh?” Stern wanted him to elaborate. He couldn’t.

“Yeah. I do have time for one drink, though, and I thought of one today that you might like.” This was true. Thoughts of Stern regularly came bubbling to the surface as Barclay went about his day, cooking and cleaning and folding linen like a housewife with many strange children.

“Just for me?”

“Just for you.”

“Well, whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll like it.”

Barclay nodded. His senses had been heightened for a few days now, the smooth glass of a rum bottle and the cold of a carton of orange juice out of the fridge, the smell of a sprinkle of ginger.

“You should have one, too,” said Stern, laughed a little. “Put it on my tab.”

Barclay took out a second glass. More ginger for himself than he’d given Stern, a little less rum. He knew all the ways in which Stern’s tastes deviated from his own. 

“I guess I shouldn’t be staying up so late every night, anyway,” said Stern. “Important work in the morning, and all that.”

Yeah. Important work. Barclay sat down across from Stern, two glasses between them. They knew each other well enough at this point that the polished bar between them was a mere formality. Barclay offered a toast. “To going to bed on time?”

Stern clinked his glass to Barclay’s. “To going to bed.”

The glass had almost made it to Barclay’s lips when he caught Stern’s double meaning. Stern was blushing and looking pleased with himself. “That’s delicious, by the way. Although not about to put me to sleep. What do you call it?”

“I don’t know. I’d name it after you, but if I did that pretty soon every drink on the menu would be the Stern.”

The cuckoo clock hanging above the mantle spat out its bird. Barclay looked at the pulp left in the bottom of his glass. “I should really be going.” He’d been having hot flashes all day, tingling at the tips of his fingers and toes, and he’d had to go to his room to jerk off between cleaning up breakfast and starting lunch. 

“Of course. I can do these dishes so you can leave.”

“Thanks.” Barclay ducked into the closet behind the front desk to get his jacket and collected the keys to Mama’s pickup on his way out. “Let me know if you have any ideas for what to call that drink,” he said, and swung out the door. 

Indrid’s Winnebago was the only vehicle in the campground, and in daylight it would have looked deserted. Only in total darkness was the soft glow of light inside visible through the papered-over windows. 

Barclay didn’t bother to knock. The door opened as soon as he’d reached it, revealing the mothman in gray sweatpants and a white tank top. “Come in,” Indrid said. “Don’t let the heat out.”

Barclay did as he was told. The Winnebago was a sauna. “Hello, Indrid.”

“It’s nice to see you too,” said Indrid, absentmindedly responding to something Barclay had not yet said. “Eggnog?”

“Please.”

“Sit down, make yourself comfortable.” Indrid swept a wave of papers off the squat couch and headed to the tiny kitchenette. Barclay sat. “The answer is yes, by the way,” Indrid continued. He pressed a cup of eggnog into Barclay’s hand and leaned up against the wall opposite the couch. “You don’t have to be nervous about asking.”

The eggnog was thick and cold and cinnamony down Barclay’s throat. It was strange to take a drink from someone else; he was so used to being the one offering. “Thank you.”

“Just to be clear I’m reading the right future: your season is approaching and you anticipate the complicated state of your romantic life causing issues?”

“Yes.” He was used to dealing in innuendos and talking around the elephant in the room, had been doing it with Stern for goddamn  _ months  _ now, but it was nice to be anticipated. Known. “You’re - Indrid, you’re the only one in Kepler who understands.”

Indrid was the only other  _ monster.  _ The other sylphs - Dani, Moira - their sylph forms were only a little outside the human norm. Barclay fiddled with the bracelet around his wrist. He and Indrid were the only ones who truly looked like they belonged in a zoo.

“I’m flattered that you think I understand you,” said Indrid. “In this? Yes, I do. But you’re a family man, Barclay, which I have never comprehended and doubt I ever will.”

Indrid excavated a leather journal from the avalanche of papers he’d pushed off the couch and plunked down next to Barclay. He flipped through, paused on a page that made Barclay flinch. It was a portrait of Stern. 

“I’ve never met him,” Indrid said. “How much do you want me to be him? Far be it from me to comment on the  _ healthiness  _ of that suggestion -” Indrid waved a hand airily at the state of the camper, empty mugs and scraps of paper (many were fragments of faces, eyes staring eerily at Barclay in black and gray, orphan mouths twisted in silent screams) and junk food wrappers everywhere.

“No. I don’t want you to be him.”

“Human?”

“Yes. And where? Here is too small, and the lodge is too crowded.”

“In the woods, then. We’ll be able to scream as loud as we like.” Indrid smiled, and Barclay was human enough to recognize that it was unsettling. “Do you want to stalk me first? I can wear a suit and act surprised when you arrive to ravish me.”

“Please don’t tease me.”

Indrid seized a pencil and scratched the beginning of a curved line in his sketchpad. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t both have fun with this.” He was biting his lip, and there was nothing mean in his voice.

“Yeah?” Barclay raked his gaze over Indrid’s bare shoulders and neck. Indrid’s choice of a human body, short and skinny, had never quite made sense to him.

“Do it,” Indrid breathed.

Barclay stood up, all six foot five of him, and yanked Indrid up with him, the sketchbook and pencil slipping to the floor as he slammed him up against the wall of the Winnebago. Indrid whimpered. Barclay pressed his nose into the crook of Indrid’s neck, breathed in the smell of his hair and his sweat and the sugar on his lips. “I need to get your scent,” he said, lips half an inch from Indrid’s skin, “so I can hunt you down.”

Indrid finally found the use of his hands, pulled on Barclay’s hair until he was in position to kiss him, and Barclay let him. Indrid’s mouth tasted like eggnog. Barclay let him drop back to the floor and backed away.

“Do you know what day it’ll happen?”

“Saturday. Nine in the morning, maybe. And since you’re going to hunt me down I don’t even need to tell you where in Monongahela I’m planning to be.”

Barclay shivered in anticipation. He didn’t  _ do  _ that kind of thing, didn’t play at hunting like a caged tiger needing  _ enrichment _ . He also knew that by Sylph standards he would be terrible. Out-of-practice, anthropomorphized. “We can do dinner afterwards, if you want.”

“Such a gentleman. If it’s your cooking, I’m interested.”

Barclay nodded. “And - you’ll tell me if I’m being too rough? I know I won’t be fully myself, but I’ll still listen.”

“Likewise.”

Nervousness faded into thrumming anticipation, and Barclay realized how tired he was. He’d been up since five that morning. 

“I’ll see you Saturday,” said Indrid. His expression was unreadable, eyes hidden behind those reflective sunglasses, but Barclay trusted him. One monster to another.

\--

Barclay told Mama Friday night that he was taking the next day off. She raised her eyebrows and looked across the room to Stern, but Barclay shook his head. Mama shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll manage to feed ourselves somehow.”

“I’ll probably be back before dinner.”

“Just so long as you don’t get yourself killed somehow, I’m happy. And I know you can handle yourself.”

Then he stopped at the couch where Stern was sitting. Stern patted the cushion next to him and Barclay tried to look apologetic. “Sorry, I wish I could. I just wanted to say I probably won’t see you tomorrow until late. I’m going on a solo hike.” In that moment he thanked Silvain that he wasn’t as bad a liar as Duck. 

“You’ll tell me if you see Bigfoot?”

Barclay laughed. “I’m sure he’ll run when he sees me coming.”

He woke up Saturday morning with sweat-soaked sheets wrapped too tight around his legs, and it took a moment to remember where he was and kick himself free. Something strange and aggressive simmered in his veins. 

Barclay combed his hair without making eye contact with himself in the mirror, dressed quickly, and thankfully made it down the stairs and into Mama’s truck without meeting anyone. He was half-hard already. 

It occurred to him as he turned the key in the ignition that he hadn’t told Mama he was planning to take the truck. She could deal with it. He rolled down the windows and drove towards the campground where Indrid lived. Even in his human form the smells of the world were a hundred times more intense than usual: the wind carried pine and soil, still not enough to drown out the distinct sweat-smells of everyone who’d ridden in the truck in the last month. 

Indrid wasn’t at the campground, of course. The Winnebago was dark. Barclay got out of the truck and breathed deeply, focusing in on the smell of eggnog and paper and something else he could only think of as  _ insect _ , which as far as he knew humans couldn’t smell at all but told Barclay that Indrid had been undisguised in the area. 

The better to travel further into the woods, of course. And he must have set out before dawn; Indrid couldn’t bear being seen. Barclay slipped the truck keys into his pocket and started off into the woods. His boots crunched on pine needles and he could hear birdsong. 

A hundred meters from the road, Barclay took his bracelet off. Like this, in his true form in the hours before heat set in, the air was so thick with scents that it felt like he’d dunked his head into a pot of his famous cream-of-broccoli soup. He could taste the twittering anxiety of the birds in the trees, the scattered skeleton of a deer buried here beneath the leaf litter, even the slow chemical language of the trees, though he could not understand what they were saying.

He also smelled sweat, almost human but a little bit wrong. Indrid. In this form, Barclay covered ground in long soundless strides, like the forest had constructed him specifically to fit perfectly between her folds. 

He found Indrid lying on a picnic blanket in a clearing. Barclay growled without meaning to, and Indrid turned around, carefully put a bookmark in his book. “Oh, dear,” said Indrid. “I never did put much stock in rumors, but now I see that bigfoot may be real after all. I do hope he doesn’t…” Indrid paused, spread his legs a little. He was wearing shorts. “Take any liberties with my person.”

“You flirt like an absolute goddamn nerd,” said Barclay, advancing into the clearing.

“So the beast can speak.” Indrid was smiling, now, not even one of his creepy ones. His bare shoulders and legs shimmered with sunscreen. 

Could their disguise bodies even get sunburned? Barclay never had, though he wasn’t as pale as Indrid and didn’t normally go outside with so much skin exposed. He made a mental note to ask Indrid about it afterwards. 

“Will he speak to tell me how he wants me?”

“Your mouth.” Barclay struggled with the button on his pants. Claws weren’t meant for this. “Shit.”

Indrid was kneeling in front of him, pulled his hand away and did it himself. The smell of almost-human was overpowering. Barclay wondered if Stern would smell like this. 

Indrid’s wet mouth knocked that thought out of his head. Barclay buried both hands in Indrid’s soft hair, scratched his long nails gently against Indrid’s scalp. Indrid made a happy noise.

He was close already, and used his grip in Indrid’s hair to fuck his mouth, ended up finishing down Indrid’s neck and chin. Then Barclay made the long journey from his full standing height to laying facedown on Indrid’s picnic blanket.

“Good?” said Indrid.

Barclay nodded. Indrid had been wrong, earlier. Barclay wasn’t interested in pretending that he was fucking a human, fucking Stern. Indrid’s current body was more convenient to manhandle, sure, but when Barclay closed his eyes he saw the afterimage of shiny red glasses as the eyes of the beast that truly was. 

“I want you to fuck me. Without your glasses.”

Indrid looked around the clearing nervously, reluctant to reveal his original form.

“Oh, come on. You’re the one with future vision, you’ll know if anyone is gonna show up. And hey, at least it’d be both of us.” Then, more seriously: “You don’t have to if you’re uncomfortable with it.”

An enormous pair of wings blotted out the sun. Indrid’s red eyes narrowed in a way that suggested he was smiling.

“Hot,” said Barclay. Earth was to Silvain as the American colonies had been to Great Britain, at least in that old-world titles didn’t matter here, but Barclay knew who Indrid had been. Here Indrid’s chest, bulky with the musculature of flight, wasn’t draped in silk scarves, and the fingers that now stretched Barclay open and fucked him were bare of the ornate rings they’d once worn. 

Indrid spoke their native tongue with an aristocratic lilt, and though Barclay would never admit it out loud, it gave him some pleasure to know that here, among humans, the former court seer of Silvain didn’t even live in a real house, and he, Barclay, did. 

\--

The sun had set when they made it back to the Winnebago, both man-shaped once again. “He’s going to be in the lobby when you get back to the lodge,” said Indrid as Barclay tended to the deep scratches on his back. “I don’t have to come in if you don’t want him to see me with you.”

“Why wouldn’t I? I promised you dinner and I intend to deliver.”

Indrid shrugged and pulled on a long-sleeved shirt, a turtleneck, and then a wool sweater. “Maybe I can convince him I’m bigfoot so he stops focusing on the lodge.”

“You’d do that?”

“No.” Indrid’s face was suddenly serious. “Not even for you.”

“Fair enough. You ready to head out?”

Indrid nodded, and Barclay held the door of the Winnebago for him as they left. He was still a little fuzzy for most of the drive, and when Indrid spoke again, he startled.

“Oh!” said Indrid. “I just saw what you’re planning to make for me. Oh, Barclay, I don’t even know what it is yet but it’s gonna be so pretty.”

Barclay glanced away from the road for long enough to see that Indrid was flapping his hands, and smiled. “So much for keeping it a surprise.”

“I didn’t think you’d remember what I can eat.”

“I’m literally a chef. Can you… tell me anything about what to expect from Stern?”

“Most of the futures show him finding me quite strange, but harmless. If I tell him I’ve heard a lot about him from you, he blushes.”

“Ah. I wasn’t planning on telling him what we, uh, did. It’d be hard to explain without getting into, you know, everything.”

“Perfectly understandable. I shall be discreet.”

When they arrived at the lodge, the lobby was mostly dark. The one light that was on illuminated the empty bar spread with papers, and Agent Stern hunched over them. He turned when the door opened, and immediately began stuffing his papers back into their manila folders. “Barclay!” he said excitedly, but his expression froze when he saw Indrid.

“Hello, Stern,” said Barclay, crossing the room. “This is my friend Indrid. Indrid, this is Agent Stern.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” said Indrid. “I’ve heard so much about you from Barclay.”

Stern’s mouth was still gaping. Barclay looked from him to Indrid, not understanding. Indrid’s face was set in a pleasant smile. “Indrid  _ Cold _ ?” said Stern.

Indrid’s face fell. “I am he.”

Stern leaped off the barstool and shook Indrid’s hand hard with both of his. “It’s such an honour to meet you, sir! I passed your bust at Quantico every day for a year!”

“Indrid Cold is my name,” said Indrid carefully. “Barclay, I believe you promised me dinner?”

“Yes,” said Barclay. An unfamiliar feeling pooled in his stomach.  _ Jealousy?  _ He hurried behind the bar and into the kitchen. The afterglow he was feeling broke against the shock of cold air coming out of the fridge as he retrieved a large mason jar full of clear liquid, which he’d prepared the previous afternoon and labeled with a yellow Post-It.  _ Don’t touch. Barclay. _

He took out a platter and a row of shot glasses, and decanted the mason jar into them. Then he rifled through the cabinets and pulled out tiny bottles of extract, vanilla and maple and lemon, and bottles of food coloring.

He normally didn’t cook with anything so artificial, but he knew Indrid. 

Out in the lobby, Indrid cursed his own luck. Counting down the seconds until Barclay returned was the only thing that kept him from freaking out as he navigated Stern’s questions. The future where Stern recognized him had been so unlikely, so,  _ so  _ unlikely. It was a shame, because he liked this face. But if it was recognizable as the same face on a bronze bust in a dusty hallway of the FBI headquarters, it needed to go. 

When Barclay finally re-emerged, he was carrying a rainbow. Seven shot glasses lined up on a tray, each filled with a different colored liquid. 

Indrid honest-to-god  _ squealed. _

Barclay set the tray down in front of him, who took a tiny sip of the purple one. “Oh. Oh, Barclay. It’s perfect. Lavender?”

“Yes. Do you want me to tell you what they all are, or do you want to find out yourself?”

“I won’t let you ruin the surprise,” said Indrid, moving on to the yellow one. “Oh. I want to drink it all right now but I also want it to last!”

“Uh,” said Stern. “What is that?”

“I added sugar to boiling water and then cooled it to supersaturate it and added flavour extracts and food coloring.” Barclay beamed to see Indrid throw back the red drink. It had been a while since anyone but Stern had expressed real appreciation for his cooking: most of the lodge’s residents were too used to it. 

Barclay was almost giddy now, looking between his crush and the man he’d just fucked and been fucked by. He vaulted easily over the bar, which he generally avoided doing because he wasn’t sure if a normal human could do it, and wrapped his arm around Stern’s shoulders. “So never feel bad about having weird taste in food, because nobody’s weirder than Indrid.”

Stern leaned into him, and Indrid raised the glass of purple sugar-water. “Cheers to that.” Then he threw it back so forcefully that his glasses slipped a little down his nose, and Barclay startled, but of course Indrid put them back before they fell off entirely.

Now all the glasses were empty. “Now I wish I’d made that last a little longer,” said Indrid.

Barclay shrugged. “You’ll just have to come over again. It takes a while to get it heated up and cooled again, but if you want something else to drink…”

“Yes, actually, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Barclay released Stern, who made an absolutely adorable noise, and beckoned Indrid into the kitchen with him. He closed the door behind them and hissed, “how does he know you?”

Indrid shook his head. “I didn’t think he would recognize me! In the vast majority of futures he didn’t, believe me. I did some work for the FBI in the seventies, but I don’t think he remembers the actual date.”

“You were a  _ cop?”  _ said Barclay.

Indrid moved past him and pulled out a glass and a spoon and the bag of sugar. He knew where each of these things were despite not having been here in recent memory. “It seemed like a good idea at the time! As I’m sure you can imagine, I was rather good at code-breaking. And I got a real degree in math and everything,” said Indrid, spooning sugar into the empty glass. “They want you to show your work.”

“Christ, Indrid.”

“What, you don’t think I’m responsible enough to have a real job?” said Indrid indignantly, pressing himself past Barclay to get to the fridge, where he pulled out the Brita pitcher and poured water on top of the sugar. Then he took a long drink. Sugar crunched audibly between his teeth. “Look, I don’t know what to tell him. If he thinks I’m FBI he might tell me stuff about his investigation, which I could use to help you.”

“Maybe.”

Indrid poured more sugar into the glass, more water. “I have a great idea.”

“Yeah?”

“We should show him our true forms.”

_ “What?” _

Indrid’s hands were shaking. “Look. Look. I can see the futures. It’s all good, Barclay, it’s all gonna be great. He is  _ so  _ into you. You could go out there as bigfoot right now and ask him to have sex with you and he’d be so down, so down. And, like, what if he’s not chill? We can just kill him.”

“Indrid. We are not killing anyone.”

Indrid was grinning now, his Indrid Cold grin, the grin from the side of the highway in the darkness that spoke of  _ other.  _ “Speak for your-fucking-self. You’ve been in this stupid dance with him for so long and if you just  _ got it over with  _ you’d be so much less stressed.” Then he reached up and pulled his glasses off, immediately grew three feet. His wings pressed up against the cabinets. In this form his expression was unreadable, red eyes as inscrutable as the sunglasses had been. 

But he was pushing past Barclay towards the door to the kitchen. Barclay lunged at him, grabbed him. Indrid not sexed-out and hopped up on sugar would never do this. But the mothman was stronger than a human, even a human like Barclay. Barclay ripped off his bracelet and transformed, and they struggled for one more moment before Indrid went limp in his arms, giggling, antennae twitching from overstimulation. 

“ _ Indrid.  _ What the -”

And then the kitchen door opened. Stern stood there, gaping. Indrid gave Barclay a little push. “He’s gonna faint.”

And Barclay had his arms out, and Stern collapsed into them.

Indrid’s giggled faded when he saw Barclay’s face. “Oh,” said Indrid. His voice was serious again, like he’d sobered up a little, and his antennae flattened against his head in submission. “Oh, shit. Mama’s gonna be so mad. Leave it to me to show up after twenty years away and immediately fuck everything up.”

\--

Stern came to in his own bed. Barclay was sitting in the chair next to him with his head in his hands. “Hello, Stern,” said Barclay, sounding exhausted.

“You’re bigfoot.” Stern sat up too quickly, tried to scramble away, but when he looked behind him the other one was standing by the door. “And you’re the mothman! Did you - what did you  _ do _ ?”

“Stern. Please.” Barclay’s eyes were wide and pleading.

“I can see the future, Agent Stern,” said Indrid, “but your decision-making tendencies confuse me.”

Barclay whipped his head around. “ _ His  _ decision-making tendencies confuse you?”

“Right. You’re right. I’m not in a place to talk.”

“Hey, guys?” said Stern. “Can we be about  _ me  _ for a second?”

Barclay turned back to him. “Yes, of course. Can I -” and he held out his hand “-can I touch you? Would that be okay-oof!” he said, because Stern had launched himself out of the bed and half into Barclay’s lap with his enthusiasm in hugging him. 

“Yes, you can touch me.” Stern squeezed his eyes shut. Waves of fear and affection intersected. His first thought when he’d opened the kitchen door was that his own failure to catch Bigfoot had resulted in Barclay being attacked. Now, watching Bigfoot bicker with the mothman was  _ absurd,  _ and the concern in Barclay’s voice meant that he cared enough about Stern to have this conversation, and Stern bathed in it.

Barclay’s flannel shirt was soft, and smelled not like pancakes and coffee as he normally did, but something sharp. Something Stern could only place as  _ sex.  _ Well, that was something to think about later.

“Indrid, do you mind? Thank you,” said Barclay over Stern’s head, and Stern heard the door to the room open and shut behind him. They were alone. “Okay. Hey, Joseph.”

Stern pulled away from him, still half-kneeling in Barclay’s lap, Barclay’s hands light on his shoulders. “You’re bigfoot.”

“Yeah. And I’d really like to check in about that, just to determine where you are on the spectrum of immediately calling your bosses and having me locked in a government laboratory somewhere versus being willing to keep this between us.”

“I wouldn’t - you wouldn’t be locked up _. _ ” Stern thought of the FBI storage facilities he’d seen, the evidence in temperature-controlled storage. The Unabomber’s cabin was in one, somewhere, excised from the Montana wilderness and reassembled to stand forever out-of-place in a white room. “I am… open to the idea of not informing my superiors. If you have a compelling reason.”

“Okay. That’s a relief. Thank you for being open. There are… other... supernatural beings... that come here, to Kepler, and they want to hurt people. I have been working to stop people from getting hurt, or finding out about it. Because if people found out that there were supernatural creatures trying to hurt them, they might not be particularly inclined to differentiate between the supernatural creatures that have bad intentions and those who don’t.”

“Ah.” Stern could feel Barclay’s gaze, searching for his decision. 

Then Barclay laughed, a little uncomfortably, and looked away. “In a way it’s almost a relief you found out. I had been trying to… avoid getting too close to you, so you wouldn’t find out, and it’ll be easier not to have to hide anymore.”

“Yeah?” So many things clicked into place in Stern’s head. This was why Barclay had flirted without following through, never made a move any of the many times Stern had reached out halfway, no matter how many longing gazes he sent Stern’s way.

Barclay took a deep breath. “If you tell the rest of the FBI what you know, Indrid and I will have to leave Kepler. We’ll change our disguises. You and I will never see each other again. And I’d really like to keep seeing you.”

Stern’s breath caught in his chest, and for a moment he cursed himself for being so soft when it came to Barclay’s brown eyes, Barclay’s hands, chapped from so many sinks of hot dishwater, wanting to stroke Barclay’s hair and feel Barclay’s beard against his cheek. 

But then again, Barclay cared more about him as a person than the FBI did. Barclay remembered what he liked for breakfast and that he was allergic to peanuts. His supervisors saw him as a replaceable machine who could write reports.

“I won’t tell,” Stern breathed. Compromising his professional integrity, and the chance to show his supervisors that he’d been right all along, was more than worth it for Barclay’s smile.

Barclay’s relief was palpable. His shoulders relaxed, he slumped back a little bit in the chair, and Stern realized that he’d been essentially sitting in Barclay’s lap this whole time, which was a little embarrassing. But he also realized that he had no desire to move. 

“You suggested that you could be a little more honest with me, now that I know?”

“I mean that. Even when I was hiding this from you, you were still important to me. Are still important to me. What do you want to know?”

“You and Indrid. Are you…?”

Barclay smiled. “We’re friends. It’s a little bit complicated; we’ve known each other a long time and we have things in common as, well, cryptids, that nobody else understands. But I’m not interested in him the same way I’m… interested in you.”

Stern steeled himself. “Can I make a flirtatious joke that is in no way reflective of my intentions  _ vis-à-vis _ telling anyone about you being bigfoot? And you don’t have to feel pressured to respond in any particular way as I already promised I wouldn’t tell anyone?”

“Go right ahead.”

Stern mustered his most seductive voice, lowered his eyelashes. “Had you considered any other ways you might convince me? I’m sure someone who cuts as imposing a figure as you do is capable of being  _ very  _ persuasive.”

Barclay spoke with mock surprise, and his hands moved from Stern’s shoulders to his hips. “Agent Stern, are you  _ horny  _ for Bigfoot?”

“If Bigfoot is you, then yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> come hit me up on tumblr @bellafarallones


End file.
